Leadership development is complicated.
Imagine for a moment that you want to actively focus on becoming a better leader. In the absence of an organizationally sponsored leadership development program, you turn to Google or ChatGPT for answers. You read a few articles, listen to a few podcasts and order a book or two. What you find is useful, to be sure, but it doesn’t amount to a cohesive or systematic approach to your specific situation. In an ideal world, you would have a mini-MBA curriculum that was customized to you and to your role.
Leadership can seem nebulous – one of those “you know it when you see it” concepts. While there is no dearth of resources that attempt to define it, the frustrating truth is that there is no definitive model, framework, or single profile of what makes an exceptional leader.
In fact, no two leaders are alike. As an executive coach, I have worked with hundreds of individual leaders and each one is spectacularly unique. They span industries, generations, ethnicities, education, experience and personalities. While many of them would share some key leadership skills – their capacity for strategic thinking, decision-making under pressure, problem solving – there is something more fundamental.
Leadership, simply stated, can be defined as someone who others want to be led by. This is what makes developing yourself, as a leader, so difficult. To build your followership, it all depends on your starting point. There is a saying in development that leadership is an “inside-out” job, meaning that the path to becoming a better leader starts with understanding yourself better. Just as each of my clients are radically different leaders with unique strengths and blind spots, so too are you. Self-awareness allows you to increase your ability to observe yourself in the moment and begin to see your impact when you are at your best and your impact when you are at your worst.
How Executive Coaching Fosters Leadership Development
I often think of executive coaching as the mini-MBA that leaders so desperately need. It is a customized program tailored to each individual. Clients come to me in one of two ways:
- Clients hire me directly, without the sponsorship of an organization. In these cases, it is unlikely that we will engage in the 360-feedback process. However, our use of the Integrative Enneagram (iEQ9) acts as an accelerant, proving data-based insights into behavioral patterns.
- Organizationally sponsored. Whether hired by a business unit manager or through HR, executive coaching within an organization takes a systemic approach. We calibrate what success is, not just for the client, but also for the organization.
In both cases, we do what amounts to a SWOT analysis to establish our starting point. What are this leader’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? From there, our partnership creates a laboratory for clients to experiment, analyze and iterate on behaviors that are designed to build that followership.
Whether used as a standalone development experience or in conjunction with a leadership development program, executive coaching offers a personalized, focused, and impactful growth experiences for leaders at all levels. By providing objective feedback, actionable insights, and a supportive framework for personal and professional growth, executive coaching helps leaders gain deeper insights into their behavior, refine their leadership style, and achieve greater impact within their organization.
Starla Sireno is recognized as one of the top executive coaches in NYC. Starla is in the business of transforming executives into better leaders and better humans. Inquire how to work with Starla or her team.